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News About Tech, Money and InnovationSun, 02 Aug 2015 19:00:51 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Copyright 2015, VentureBeatHealth Gorilla, looking to be king of the diagnostic lab jungle, grabs $1.2 millionhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/08/20/health-gorilla-looking-to-be-king-of-the-diagnostic-lab-jungle-grabs-1-2-million/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/20/health-gorilla-looking-to-be-king-of-the-diagnostic-lab-jungle-grabs-1-2-million/#commentsWed, 20 Aug 2014 18:50:08 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1532096To bring some civilized order to this zoo of labs, Health Gorilla is looking to provide what it describes as "the first online healthcare marketplace to connect all doctors and clinicians" with the testing facilities.
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Updated 12:40 PM PT with comments from Health Gorilla

Health Gorilla, a startup whose name evokes jungle fitness, has just scored $1.2 million to help tame the jungle of testing labs.

Currently, when your doctor needs to get some lab tests done or orders an X-ray from any of the 9,000 diagnostic labs or 35,000 radiology centers in the U.S., the system she uses is barely modern. There are legacy systems to place an order, and test results are often shuttled around as faxes or physical x-ray sheets between doctors.

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To bring some order to this zoo, Health Gorilla is looking to provide what it describes as “the first online healthcare marketplace to connect all doctors and clinicians” with the testing facilities.

Orders and real-time access to results can be managed within the HIPPA-compliant marketplace, with no cost to doctors. The marketplace can help boost the fortunes of electronic medical records (EMRs), given Health Gorilla’s contention that nearly three quarters of all patient records consist of diagnostic lab and radiology center test results.

CEO and co-founder Steve Yaskin told us that the marketplace was launched about six months ago, and “was in stealth mode” for 18 months previously. The new financing was raised in a seed round led by Silicon Valley-based True Ventures, which specializes in early-stage tech startups. Health Gorilla had previously acquired $500,000 from angel investors, and is expecting to close an A round soon.

The new funding is being used largely to prepare a patient portal, Yaskin said. Additionally, Health Gorilla is integrating access to its marketplace into Apple’s HealthKit.

Yesterday, Health Gorilla announced a mobile app for iPhone and iPad, allowing electronic orders to be placed with physical therapy centers, skilled nursing facilities, and medical equipment providers in addition to labs.

The marketplace wants “to provide 100 percent coverage for placing orders with any medical facilities,” Yaskin said, including drug stores. It is also beginning to work closely with medical groups, such as accountable care organizations, which can keep their costs down by analyzing Health Gorilla’s data.

Health Gorilla, founded in 2011, notes that some EMR vendors currently charge for interfacing with each lab and that doctors often cannot place orders from within EMRs. “This is the second wave [after EMRs] that ultimately make these records truly portable,” the company says on its website.

In case you were wondering, Health Gorilla is not the name this startup was born with. Its original name was Informedika, which appears to be as hard to say as to remember. The company rebranded in April.

]]>0Health Gorilla, looking to be king of the diagnostic lab jungle, grabs $1.2 millionMayo Clinic physicians spin out a digital health company & secure $1.1Mhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/02/18/mayo-clinic-physicians-spin-out-a-digital-health-company-snag-1-1m/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/18/mayo-clinic-physicians-spin-out-a-digital-health-company-snag-1-1m/#commentsWed, 19 Feb 2014 04:00:42 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=927983A group of physicians from the Mayo Clinic have teamed up with Silicon Valley investors to launch a startup.
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A group of physicians from the Mayo Clinic have teamed up with Silicon Valley investors to launch a startup.

The new entity, dubbed Ambient Clinical Analytics, raised $1.1 million in funding. The funding came from many of the usual suspects in digital health: The Social+Capital Partnership, accelerator program Rock Health, and Mayo Clinic, along with some unnamed Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Halle Tecco, cofounder of Rock Health, said she’s long been impressed with the Mayo Clinic’s “entrepreneurial spirit.” Ambient Clinical is “a product of that,” she told VentureBeat via email.

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Ambient Clinical sells a suite of technologies previously used by doctors at Mayo, including patient management and clinical support tools. The company will focus on building technology for the ICUs, operating rooms, and emergency departments at hospitals. One example is a surveillance alerts system that triggers physicians when a patient is at high risk for life-threatening conditions like sepsis. This “Septic Shock Sniffer” tool is already patent-protected.

Ambient Clinical is designed for smartphone- and tablet-wielding physicians. The technology can easily connect patients’ data with a mobile device. Another popular tool, AWARE, which stands for “ambient warning and response evaluation,” is an electronic medical record tool that uses analytics to filter the most relevant medical information.

“The impetus behind creating AWARE was that I would arrive in the ICU and spend the first hours just coming to terms with basic patient facts,” said Brian Pickering, one of the physicians who helped start Ambient Clinical, in a statement.

“Other physicians face the same situation. By applying technology to this situation, we found a way to hit the ground running. The application was designed to make transitions of care safer and more efficient.”

Ambient Clinical Analytics will be exhibiting at healthcare IT conference HIMSS in Orlando, Florida this month.

In fact, this small health care startup may have some lessons to pass on to the big boys.

Mountain View, Calif. based Doximity has built up an impressive base of some 220,000 physicians since it launched in 2011. Specialists and general practitioners rapidly adopted the HIPAA-compliant service over LinkedIn, as it is far more secure than a traditional social network. Doctors use Doximity on their mobile devices and desktops to exchange secure messages about patients, send digital faxes, peruse profiles of specialists and general practitioners, stay in touch with friends from medical school, and even gain accreditation for their medical education.

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With doctors frequently checking in to Doximity, it’s the perfect breeding ground for recruiters. Rather than charging for private messaging, the company has been quietly building out a more sophisticated recruiting tool, with support of some of the largest hospital networks. The first groups to test the service include Cedars-Sinai, Ohio State University, Kaiser Permanente, One Medical Group, Allina Health, and Banner Health.

How recruiters are using Talent Finder

Doximity’s new service, dubbed Talent Finder, is the recruiting tool that LinkedIn should have built. It’s designed to encourage depth not breadth — recruiters aren’t spamming potential candidates and hoping someone responds. In its first months, Doximity has found that about 26 percent of doctors are interested in the opportunity, and less than one percent have opted out from receiving job opportunities on the platform.

The key difference from LinkedIn is that recruiters are forced to include a salary range and provide ample information about the opportunity at the outset. They are also encouraged to read about the doctor’s interests, education, and future goals.

“Doctors aren’t joining LinkedIn or other professional networking sites, as they don’t want to be spammed from pharma reps or patients asking them questions,” said Jeff Tangney, Doximity’s chief executive in an interview.

This saves time for the doctor — a city-slicker wouldn’t need to sit on a call for half an hour to discover that the perfect-sounding job is actually based in Abilene, TX.

Another benefit over competing services: Doctors can augment their relationships with other professionals. They can forward the most promising opportunities to a friend or colleague in a few clicks with the “Forward to a Colleague” feature.

How can doctors maximize their earning potential?

Doximity is also putting its developer and data science teams to work to analyze all this available data. Recruiters have already shared an estimated 70,000 job opportunities. This information will benefit doctors in the near-term — they can tweak their profile or resume to maximize their earning potential.

Above: Figure 1

Tangney walked me through some of the key findings (and shared some data — see Fig. 1 and 2) during a visit to the VentureBeat offices.

He learned that doctors who live in rural areas are paid significantly more (it’s the law of supply and demand — most doctors want to be in San Francisco, Boston or New York), and specialists earn an average of $90,000 more than generalists. In part, that’s because specialists are more likely to charge patients for expensive procedures and tests.

For doctors who are keen to up their pay grade, a multi-page bibliography of research, lectures, and awards adds “heft,” says Tangney. We’re often told that resumes should be limited to a single page, but doctors with longer resumes (at least three pages) are more in demand.

To Tangney’s surprise, the data shows that doctors who speak a second language are typically offered a lower salary than English-only speakers — he expects that might be due to a bias against foreign medical graduates.

Above: Figure 2

Doctors can use Talent Finder to make more money — but it’s also a huge potential revenue driver for Doximity.

Rumors are beginning to circulate in the medical community about a physician shortage, with doctors ill-equipped to care for the growing aging population. This will lead to a more competitive hiring environment and a far greater demand for physicians than ever before.

Doximity charges hospitals or physician recruiters a subscription fee of $12,000 per year per license or “seat” to be able to post their jobs. The average client has about 2 or 3 licenses to Doximity.

Doximity has raised just shy of $30 million in funding from Emergence Capital Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures (which now goes by Canvas), and InterWest Ventures.

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Smart entrepreneurs are paying equally close attention to the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare). We’ve already seen new companies form to offer private health insurance exchanges so consumers can shop for affordable care. These exchanges are open for business today, Oct. 1, enabling individuals to sign up online, by phone, or in-person, with health insurance coverage starting next year.

However, top health investors are thinking about the long-term impacts of the ACA, the biggest expansion in coverage in nearly 50 years. I caught up with investors from Emergence Capital, Venrock, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Google Ventures at a health IT dinner earlier this week to discuss new opportunities for health-tech entrepreneurs.

Here’s what these expert investors think are the hot areas for health-tech startups to focus on.

Partners may be among the first to experiment with a connected health initiative, but it certainly won’t be the last. The goal of the ACA is to help hospitals move from volume-based care to value-based care, meaning that doctors won’t make money by ordering expensive tests. Instead, physicians will be motivated to keep patients healthy and prevent readmissions to the hospital.

Doctors in the Partners network use new devices that can track and monitor patients at home. According to a recent estimate by Rock Health, investors have already poured $102 million into the development of these new devices.

Entrepreneurs are building some seriously cool devices to track body metrics, like a patient’s blood pressure and heart rate. Patients with chronic conditions, like diabetes, are purchasing glucometers, blood pressure cuffs, smart Wi-Fi scales, and pulse oximeters. Check out InformationWeek‘s list of the most promising remote patient monitoring devices.

During its pilot, Partners Healthcare also pulled in data from fitness-tracking devices, like Fitbit and Jawbone UP, which determine calories burned and your number of steps taken.

Wearable technology will continue to generate a great deal of hype, but it could reach a mainstream market if the data proves to be useful for doctors.

Population health management is a huge buzzword in the health industry. Broadly speaking, it refers to the suite of software tools hospitals and other care providers use to streamline the quality of care by identifying high-risk patients and monitoring clinical outcomes. Physicians aren’t just administering care to one patient at a time — they are thinking more broadly about trends and improving outcomes for whole populations.

Evolent is just one of the startups that has recently emerged in this space. Evolent’s chief executive Frank Williams recently told me the company is already making “tens of millions,” with hospitals thinking differently about care delivery in the wake of the ACA. The company’s software pulls in relevant health data from multiple sources to identify at-risk patients, and suggest targeted treatment options. It makes all this data available to physicians, who are alerted if patients are skipping medication or exhibiting signs of an infection or illness.

Innovative primary care providers

Krishna Yeshwant, a health investor at Google Ventures, is keeping a close eye on new models for primary care. The new options for patients include One Medical (a Google Ventures investment) and Iora Health.

These concierge-style medical clinics are suited to different patient populations, but they share one thing in common: Both use technology to engage patients between doctor visits. It’s a preventive care model that is designed to save money in the long run.

Yeshwant said that primary care will do very well in the wake of health reform, as doctors face incentives for treating patients in the outpatient setting and keeping them healthy once they’ve been discharged. This is the same set of federal requirements that will also kickstart adoption of remote patient monitoring devices.

Above: A One Medical clinic in San Francisco. The slogan? “The doctor’s office. Reinvented.”

Telemedicine

Most physicians would opt to dedicate the bulk of their time to caring for the very sick and dealing with tricky cases. However, primary care doctors and specialists may still want to check in with their patients on a regular basis. This is where telemedicine comes in: New communications technologies promise to safely and securely provide clinical care from a distance. For routine checkups, a remote teleconference is a more effective use of time for both the doctor and the patient.

In other words, it may soon become the norm to video chat with your doctor.

Already, we are seeing plenty of speculation in the press that telemedicine tools will become vital with the passing of the ACA. Another benefit is that people who live in rural areas can communicate with a physician, as long as they have an Internet connection.

Data/analytics tools

Yeshwant believes data and analytics will play a stronger role in the future. Certainly, doctors will be able to access far more data than ever before, pulled in from all these new remote patient monitoring devices, publicly available sources, and electronic health records.

On a far more practical note, Yeshwant believes that physicians will need analytics tools to track their accounting and budgets. This will open up opportunities for technology entrepreneurs, even those without a strong grounding in health care.

“As incentives change we will need to manage operations and expenses much more closely,” said Yeshwant. “Hospital systems that view IT as an asset rather than a cost will win and everyone else will likely struggle.”

The health care industry is undergoing radical surgery. Internet startups are taking up scalpels to cut out decay and create new, more efficient, healthier systems, and they are raising millions of dollars to do so.

Modernizing Medicine has received $14 million from Summit Partners for its specialty-specific electronic medical record (EMR) system. MM builds EMR systems for dermatology, ophthalmology, optometry, plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, and orthopedics. Providers can use its electronic medical assistant (EMA) iPad app to electronically take notes, prescribe labs, and get results. The app also has preprogrammed medical billing and expertise.

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Over half of doctors in the U.S. have ditched paper-based systems in favor of cloud-based electronic health records (EHR), and the market is estimated at between $6 billion and $10 billion. The U.S. government is pushing health care providers to shift to digital systems. Companies like Practice Fusion and CareCloud have raised more than $30 million of venture capital to effect this change, but there are more than 300 electronic health record vendors in the market today.

Modernizing Medicine stands out because its systems are customized to the distinct requirements of different specialities. Doctors in the American medical system are highly specialized, and the needs of a plastic surgeon are not the same as an optometrist. The company works with over 2,700 providers at more than 1,000 practices. This financing will support expansion into new areas.

]]>0Modernizing Medicine raises $14M to … modernize medicineInvestor digital-health darling CareCloud raises another $9Mhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/08/15/investor-digital-health-darling-carecloud-raises-another-9m/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/15/investor-digital-health-darling-carecloud-raises-another-9m/#commentsThu, 15 Aug 2013 12:30:36 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=798400The company just added a further $9 million to its $20 million series B round to vanquish ‘walking dead’ and ‘dinosaurs’ of health IT.
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CareCloud just added $9 million in venture funding to its enormous second round, making the startup $30 million richer in a matter of months.

Investors are keen to put their dollars behind the Boston- and Miami-based startup, as it’s one of a handful of digital health ventures with the potential to make it big as health care moves online and to the cloud.

“Physician practices are fragmented — and CareCloud has an opportunity to grow its market fast,” said Jeffrey Diehl from Adams Street Partners, the firm that just invested in the round.

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CareCloud develops technology for hospitals and health clinics, making it easier for physicians to collaborate with each other and access sensitive patient records in the cloud via devices like smartphones and iPads.

The electronic medical record market is estimated to be worth between $6 billion and $10 billion — it’s a huge opportunity for CareCloud, which reported that it has tripled its revenues in 2012. Customer acquisition has never looked so good in this sector, as physicians are currently being compensated for moving their records online, according to Meaningful Use statues.

Vendors are investing heavily to ensure they are certified for Meaningful Use.

CareCloud is battling a number of younger players, but it positions itself as an alternative to legacy vendors like Allscripts, Cerner, Siemens, Epic, McKesson, and GE. It is proving to be a particularly popular option for physicians operating in small clinics.

Still, the biggest challenge for CareCloud is the competition. There are north of 300 electronic health record vendors in the market today — this number swelled with the passing of the HITECH Act in 2009, which was conceived to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health IT.

In future, many health experts believe this market will begin to consolidate, likely with winners and losers coming out of this. CareCloud hopes it will be one of the last vendors standing, and the founders are fond of saying that they are building the “single login for health care.”

“We felt on balance that the addressable market will be large even if there are fits and starts associated with consolidation,” said Diehl.

In addition, CareCloud is diversifying its product offerings — it also provides medical billing software to its customers, which helps to streamline budgeting and operations. Currently, over $2 billion in annualized accounts receivables flows through its system. Santalo told me they will also focus on building out the platform, and encouraging third-party developers to build supporting health apps.

Santalo anticipates sky-rocketing growth in 2014, when reforms under the Affordable Care Act come into effect.

“This stuff isn’t particularly sexy, but at the end of the day, reimbursement models for health care will change and we’ll see more collaboration between physicians on mobile,” he said.

Santalo plans to put the $30 million to work by building out the research and development team to take advantage of health care reform.

“The future is smart devices in the home — it’s the devices that we wear, whether that’s sensors or medical devices,” he said. “All that data will need to be stored somewhere and matched up against the health record — and that’s where we will come in.”

]]>0Investor digital-health darling CareCloud raises another $9MAn app to save lives: Medlert is the ‘fastest way to get medical help’ (exclusive)http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/03/an-app-to-save-lives-medlert-is-the-fastest-way-to-get-medical-help-exclusive/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/03/an-app-to-save-lives-medlert-is-the-fastest-way-to-get-medical-help-exclusive/#commentsWed, 03 Jul 2013 14:30:57 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=774108South African entrepreneur David Emanuel has designed a mobile alarm and alerts system for the elderly and patients with high-risk medical conditions.
]]>Most great startup ideas are so deceptively simple that you wonder why they don’t already exist or haven’t been tried before.

South African entrepreneur David Emanuel has designed a mobile alarm and alert system for patients with high-risk conditions, which he describes as the “fastest way to get medical emergency help.”

The app, dubbed Medlert, is designed for the elderly and people with chronic illness who may be alone in the event of an emergency. Medlert is in beta, but it’s readying for a public launch after assisting patients in over 6,000 emergency situations, such as heart attacks or averse effects to medication. Emanuel claims the team hasn’t invested in marketing, so the app has spread through word of mouth.

Above: Just push the button in the event of an emergency

Consumers download the iPhone and Android app and tap the icon on their homescreen when symptoms strike. Patients are then get connected with a trained operator who is already aware of the individual’s full medical history, including blood type, preexisting conditions, drug allergies. Patients fill out information on the app. Family members are automatically notified.

An ambulance is immediately dispatched to the patient’s location to take them to the nearest hospital.

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Using mapping technology, emergency contacts — typically family members — can track the location of the ambulance as it makes its way to the hospital.

Check out the video below for a demo of how it works.

Simple, right?

The Medlert team is taking advantage of recent technological developments, such as geolocation, the proliferation of smartphones, and the digitization of medical information, to shave minutes off the typical response time.

Curious about wearable computing and health? We’ve invited the experts to discuss this theme at our upcoming MobileBeat conference Tuesday and Wednesday in San Francisco.

For this reason, it’s an attractive proposition for investors. To help launch, Emanuel announced to VentureBeat that it has secured $230,000 in seed funding from seasoned angel investors, including Jason Portnoy, the former chief financial officer at web-based electronic medical records startup Practice Fusion; and Albert Prast, a senior executive at United Health Group.

Above: Medlert CEO David Emanuel

Emanuel hit on the idea for the app in 2011 when a family member developed a heart risk, and he became aware of the flaws with the current system.

“I thought that surely we could do a better job,” said Emanuel by phone. “Responders should know your medical information and be able to get in touch with your emergency contact simultaneously.”

To research how to speed up the typical process (calling 911, answering questions posed by a stranger who is oblivious to existing conditions, notifying emergency contacts one-by-one), Emanuel threw himself into user-experience research.

He jokes that he spent so much time hanging out at a San Francisco medical dispatch center that he made “best friends” with the folk working there. To get a fuller picture, he also shadowed professional telecommunicators and interviewed dozens of ambulance workers.

Emanuel brought on co-founder and chief technical officer, Ernest Semerda, to begin developing the app. He made the decision not to hire a team of operators to respond to emergency requests. Instead, Medlert is partnering with a telehealth company, Critical Signal Technologies, which already has a full team of trained medical responders.

For Emanuel and team, the smartphone app is just the beginning. In our interview, he hinted at wearable gadgets, which may already be under development.

One potential use is for the app to connect with a patient’s Nike FuelBand, Jawbone UP, or other health tracking and monitoring app that is attached to a person’s wrist or upper arm.

Imagine this scenario: Medlert is aware that a patient has diabetes, detects a spike in sugar intake over several days, sends an alert, and thwarts an emergency before it happens.

In addition, by tracking wearable device data, Medlert can monitor patients after they’ve been released from hospital. By keeping a close eye on the patient’s physiological condition and how well they are adhering to their medications, providers may be able to catch a problem before it deteriorates to the point that a patient is readmitted.

For the Medlert team, this poses a strong potential revenue opportunity. Recent health care reforms will penalize providers if patients need to be readmitted within 30 days after discharge from a hospital.

For now, the company is making the bulk of its money through charging individual consumers 50 cents a day for a monthly subscription.

In future, who will pay for an application like this? It’s not yet clear whether Medicaid will shoulder the cost, but it’s plausible, given the interest in mobile medical applications. In addition, Medlert may be able to predict and prevent emergencies, which will likely cut costs in the long term.

]]>0An app to save lives: Medlert is the ‘fastest way to get medical help’ (exclusive)Is Google Glass hospital ready? Advice from a physician to developershttp://venturebeat.com/2013/06/04/is-google-glass-hospital-ready-advice-from-a-physician-to-developers/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/04/is-google-glass-hospital-ready-advice-from-a-physician-to-developers/#commentsTue, 04 Jun 2013 15:44:54 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=750179GUEST: Google Glass for health care will remain a concept -- rather than a practice -- until developers gain a better understanding of the medical environment.
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This is a guest post by Dr. Paul Langevin

Google Glass has the potential to greatly enhance medical practices in a number of ways, VentureBeat recently reported. Among these is the ability to retrieve, see, and disseminate information rapidly and efficiently.

However, Google Glass for health care will remain a concept — rather than a practice — until developers gain a better understanding of the medical environment. There are constraints that non-clinicians seldom realize even exist, and the success of any product in the industry is ultimately determined by its functionality in that environment, regardless of how ingenious an innovation may be.

As a physician, here’s my take on how Google Glass developers can navigate the operating room, and other clinical settings.

The true meaning of “hands free”

This lack of insight into the clinical environment is demonstrated by the “hands-free” technology of Google Glass. A hands-free system in the clinical sense would need to be very literally hands free. I cannot overstate how problematic it would be for a doctor to wave their hands about in a sterile environment. Touching or even nearly touching a sensor to interact with the system would sharply curtail the device’s utility in any procedural environment.

Touching anything that is not sterile, whether it is the Glass or something in proximity to it, would require the doctor to change whatever touched the device such as a gown sleeve, glove or instrument.

Furthermore, a pop-up menu can be and will be very distracting. Non-clinicians do not realize that it is not unusual for some physicians to receive 20 or 40 pages in an hour on our beepers.

These auditory distractions are intrusive enough and at that kind of a rate, they become more than a nuisance. Most physicians dislike beepers because they require us to stop what we are doing, look at the number displayed on the beeper, and call to see what the issue is.

For this reason, texting by cell phone has largely replaced audible pages. The pop-up display of Google Glass is a visual distraction rather than an audio one — it is more difficult to ignore. But it would be useful if the system could filter what gets through to the physician at any time, blocking out all but the truly critical information.

Dealing with sensitive patient data

Maximizing utility of Google Glass will require access to Patient Specific Information (PSI), such as the electronic medical record (EMR). This alone would be reason to strictly limit — if not prohibit — the use of Google Glass in the clinical environment unless it was user selective, or at the very least, password protected. If the glasses were tailored to physicians so that no one else could use them, this would ally concerns about unauthorized access to PSI and reduce theft.

Another suggestions would be to build apps for Glass that can recognize a patient. In that case, an authorized user, even a clinician, would not be able to retrieve information they should not have. To cite a specific case, a physician and a victim of assault were taken to a hospital. Hospital administrators could track exactly who accessed the patient’s record. Nearly 50 employees at that hospital were disciplined or discharged — it became apparent that they had accessed the medical record but were not involved in the patient’s care.

Google Glass has the potential to not only restrict general access to patient data, but also select what information can be viewed by that specific user.

Another good idea that never fulfills its potential?

The device must operate with sufficient speed to allow near instantaneous retrieval of information that typically involves huge files such as display of an x-ray or CT scan. Achieving this may be quite problematic in a wireless device.

The biggest problem with Google Glass is cost. If there isn’t a real advantage to the physician and to patient care, the expense of the device and modification of other systems that support it can’t be justified.

Google Glass has potential — but developers will need to work with physicians to build apps that can function in the clinical environment with all of its medical, biological, administrative and regulatory constraints. Otherwise, Google Glass will be just another good idea that never fulfilled its potential.

]]>1Is Google Glass hospital ready? Advice from a physician to developersWhat do we mean when we talk about patient engagement?http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/21/what-do-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-patient-engagement/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/21/what-do-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-patient-engagement/#commentsTue, 21 May 2013 07:42:50 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=741323The term "patient engagement" is often discussed as a vital component of health industry innovation, but rarely explained. There's just one thing many experts agree on: Patients are not well-engaged with their own health care.
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SAN FRANCISCO — Online consumer engagement has been around since social media took off, allowing companies to form meaningful relationships with customers through ongoing interactions. Led by marketing and sales departments, consumer engagement programs can mean that people spend 20 to 40 percent more money on that brand or company’s products.

Since health care entrepreneurship became “sexy,” people are consistently using the term “patient engagement”at health technology conferences. But what exactly does this mean? Like online consumer engagement, is it simply when a company maintains a relationship with a patient through technology?

Since this is health care and situations are often complicated, there is little consensus over the definition of a term that everyone is using.

The closest analog to traditional online consumer engagement is “meaningful use,” a standard set by the U.S. federal government that enables providers to earn incentive payments based on how much patients are using their electronic medical records (EMR) systems. In this case, 5 percent of patients must log into an electronic record and upload their data for a provider to earn a bonus.

However, this “ongoing relationship” starts and ends when a patient merely interacts with the technology, regardless of frequency of use or the value added to a patient’s life.

For patient engagement, there should be a more robust definition that includes positive health outcomes, where engagement encompasses interactions with technology that lead to some ancillary or direct health benefit.

At HealthBeat, this concept was discussed during a breakout session titled “Consumer Health Apps: Human Centered Design,” featuring Marco Della Torre, biomedical engineer and business development at Basis; Chris Hogg, a vice president of data science at Practice Fusion; Eric Bailey, chief experience officer at PokitDok; and moderated by Aimee Jungman, formerly of Frog Design.

All agreed that we do not need a single definition for patient engagement. According to Chris Hogg, “all terms out of health are terrible,” adding that “patient engagement is merely creating products that people want to use.”

However, Della Torre of Basis saw value in correlating product usage with positive outcomes. Unless providers can quantify behavior change and prove value, the troves of data collected by sensors and “engaged” patients is useless.

Even though they clearly disagreed over the definition and value of the term, the panelists did agree on one basic point: Patients today aren’t truly engaged with health technology or even with their own health.

This is the crux of a problem that we need to address before we can begin to understand patient engagement, empowerment, and how to use these relationships to fix a broken system.

Can we create persuasive technology to encourage patient engagement with the mere concept of their own health?

For example, when people are sick, we have a tendency to exhibit avoidant behavior (like taking “medication holidays” from prescription drugs.)

On the other hand, when we are healthy we don’t want to think about health, and companies have found it challenging to channel consumer interest toward something as innocuous as their own biometric data.

So next time we talk about patient engagement, let’s also consider how users relate to the concept of their own health and whether technology can be used to not only engage, but also advance positive health outcomes.

]]>0What do we mean when we talk about patient engagement?DocuTAP taps into $11.9M to save lives using softwarehttp://venturebeat.com/2013/05/02/docutap-taps-into-11-9m-to-save-lives-using-software/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/02/docutap-taps-into-11-9m-to-save-lives-using-software/#commentsThu, 02 May 2013 16:59:16 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=729608DocuTAP has raised $11.9 million from Bessemer Venture Partners for its software that streamlines workflow in urgent care clinics.
]]>The Emergency Room is often a chaotic place where precision and agility mean the difference between life and death. DocuTAP has raised $11.9 million from Bessemer Venture Partners to make sure that if something does go wrong, it is not the result of disorganization.

DocuTAP helps urgent care clinics digitalize their operations to make them more efficient and less reliant on paper. The software integrates electronic health records (EHR) and “practice management” technology so all the information and tools needed to operate an efficient practice is one place. The platform is accessible on tablets so clinicians can use it on-the-go. DocuTAP also features automated and customizable tools so each clinic can tailor the software to their needs as well as billing services.

In a statement issued this morning, Steve Kraus of Bessemer Venture Partners said that urgent care is one of the fastest growing sectors within the healthcare marketplace. The healthcare industry as a whole is undergoing a digital transformation. The U.S. government mandated that doctors need to be fully transitioned to electronic records by 2014, and companies are raising large amounts of venture capital to help them do that.

In November 2012, Hello Health raised $11.5 million and companies like CareCloud (backed by $20 million) and Practice Fusion (backed by $64 million) are experiencing significant growth. The market for electronic medical records is estimated at between $6 billion and $10 billion.

DocuTAP stands to capitalize on this transition as well, all the way from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The company was founded in 2000 and this marks its second round of funding. Bluff Point Associates led the first round of $12 million in March 2012. This financing will be used to increase market presence, accelerate sales, and continue to improve the products.

]]>0DocuTAP taps into $11.9M to save lives using softwareNew ONC fee proposal scares health IT sectorhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/04/11/new-onc-fee-proposal-scares-health-it-sector/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/11/new-onc-fee-proposal-scares-health-it-sector/#commentsThu, 11 Apr 2013 20:23:43 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=714734The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT just released its budget plan for 2014, which would increase its funding. But it's a little-reported line item that's causing a stir among entrepreneurs -- a proposal to boost fees for electronic health record vendors.
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The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT just released its budget plan for 2014, which would increase its $61 million budget to $78 million, a 28 percent jump. But it’s a little-reported line item that’s causing a stir among entrepreneurs — a proposal to boost fees for electronic health record vendors.

The ONC is the division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads many initiatives laid out in the Affordable Care Act.

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The funding boost in the Obama administration’s proposed budget is a response to the expanding marketplace for health IT. The ONC reports that a new “revenue source” is needed to help it handle the “increasing workload.”

A little-reported line item proposes amped up fees for electronic health record vendors and is a cause for concern for entrepreneurs.

The $1 million user fee “would provide ONC with the necessary resources to meet the increasing demands of health IT vendors,” the plan stipulates. Sources tell me it has a 50 percent chance of being authorized by Congress.

It’s unclear at this point how the ONC would levy the user fee, but it’s plausible that it would be passed down to doctors.

Lauren Fifield, a senior strategist for the free electronic medical record startup Practice Fusion, said the user fee would not be a strain on the industry. The bigger concern is the “high likelihood” that the ONC will use these funds to take on more projects and soon require higher user fee revenues.

Already, EHR vendors are speculating that a user fee charge is the ONC’s way of assuming regulatory authority. “This would be agency creep,” said Fifield, and urged the FDA, FCC and ONC to come together to clarify their roles.

Fifled said this might also create confusion and overregulation for electronic health record developers and entrepreneurs. “The user fee is a slippery slope that could create an even more dysfunctional health IT market,” she said.

Imagine browsing dozens of reviews from past patients before booking a doctor’s appointment — all from a smartphone.

This is the vision for Practice Fusion, a San Francisco-based startup that is best known for its free electronic medical record (EMR). Today, the digital health company is launching a web app for scheduling doctor’s appointments, which will be closely followed by iPhone and Android apps.

“We want to facilitate the entire patient journey and life cycle,” said CEO Ryan Howard. The new consumer-facing technology is known as “Patient Fusion,” and Howard describes it as a “Yelp for doctors.”

It’s a strategic move, given that Practice Fusion has already amassed doctor profiles and information about your health, all contained within its EMR. Howard admits that by marketing new products to patients, the company will augment its brand with hospital decision-makers. In a nutshell, Patient Fusion is a smart physician acquisition tool.

Already, Practice Fusion claims it has 3 million open appointments for the month of April alone, more than any of its competition. Roughly half of its user base of doctors have opted in — the app will go live with 27,000 doctors and 1.5 million reviews. These physicians serve an estimated 60 million patients across the U.S.

Patient Fusion is directly competitive with ZocDoc, the New York based scheduling technology that has registered about 30,000 doctors.

According to Howard, it’s still a problem as a third of staff time is spent on “scheduling, and canceling and rescheduling.” Patient Fusion was developed to reduce these inefficiencies, and help patients find an appointment at a well-reviewed doctor nearby.

The app isn’t intended as a monetization stream for the company. But it will be deemed a success if more doctors sign up to the EMR (the company is going after big pharmaceutical advertising deals).

Another goal is to use patient’s data to help them find the best doctor; if you suffer from diabetes, for instance, the app will begin to prioritize physicians in the search rankings with relevant expertise.

Howard observed in a recent interview that accessing and mining patient information can save lives. “We can recommend drug therapies based on their popularity [with previous patients],” he said, and claims there are 200,000 avoidable deaths a year because “data is simply not shared.”

Practice Fusion pulled in its most recent $34 million funding round in June 2012, and counts PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel among its investors.

Startup founders often make bold claims about disrupting entire industries. Dr. Tom X. Lee is one such entrepreneur, but in this particular case, his company is already shaping the future of healthcare.

Dr. Lee is the founder and CEO of One Medical Group, a chain of concierge primary care practices operating under the tagline, “The doctor’s office. Reinvented.”

As a long-time customer, I can attest that this marketing speak isn’t an exaggeration. Feeling unwell? Book a same-day appointment online or via a smartphone app at your nearest doctor’s office, show up, fill out a form or two, and you’ll be seen within minutes.

Above: Dr Tom X Lee, One Medical’s CEO

Dr Lee is a physician-turned-entrepreneur who received an MD from the University of Washington and MBA from Stanford University. “It was pretty clear in my medical training that the goal was to practice old-school medicine,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat.

“I noticed that the system was broken — it was really confusing, patients weren’t happy, doctors weren’t happy,” he explained.

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The model proved to resonate with customers, so the group has been opening offices in new markets, including Boston and New York. And today, it just closed its sixth round of funding led by Google Ventures with participation from existing investors, including Benchmark Capital and DAG Ventures.

One Medical may not be a Silicon Valley startup in the traditional sense, but it has embraced technology from the outset. Patients can use a mobile app to schedule an appointment or refill a prescription, or chat with a doctor via instant message. For this reason, it has been an attractive option for Silicon Valley’s tech investors, and has raised $77 million to date.

Dr. Lee spent six months undercover to root out the biggest flaws with the current system. He worked in a large and unnamed primary care practice in various occupations, including nurse, administrator, physician and secretary. During that time, he learned that doctors are “overburdened” with personel, and held back by paper-based systems.

“What we are trying to do is introduce a small local office solution that has the technology infrastructure of a Kaiser, Mayo Clinic, or University of San Francisco,” he said.

By reducing overhead and administration, the company has also been able to offer medical care at a cheaper rate.

The group accepts almost all insurance plans, including PPOs and HMOs, but asks that customers pay $149 a year to support those who don’t have insurance, and enable the company to invest in new technology. For those without insurance, it costs about $150 a visit, which is still cheaper than most alternatives.

One Medical currently boasts 23 offices around the country with 13 in the SF Bay Area, six in New York, two in Washington, D.C. and one each in Chicago and Boston, and more planned to open this year.

]]>1One Medical gets $30M to bring high-quality healthcare to all AmericansAthenaHealth scoops up Epocrates to bring a mobile toolset to doctorshttp://venturebeat.com/2013/01/08/athenahealth-scoops-up-epocrates-to-bring-a-mobile-toolset-to-doctors/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/08/athenahealth-scoops-up-epocrates-to-bring-a-mobile-toolset-to-doctors/#commentsTue, 08 Jan 2013 21:28:37 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=601057Epocrates Inc., a medical applications company based in Silicon Valley, is being scooped up by AthenaHealth for $293 million.
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Med-tech is off to a bold start this year with a hot acquisition, which will serve to consolidate the market.

Massachusetts-based AthenaHealth provides cloud-based services and tools to doctors and hospitals. The company faces fierce competition from Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Quality Systems, as well as Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, which is retooling after a protracted drama with its board.

Epocrates is an attractive prospect for AthenaHealth, as it has built up brand-name recognition with doctors. AthenaHealth estimates that it is has been used by 338,000 U.S. physicians to pull up short summaries on drugs, including information about side effects and interactions.

“Capturing mindshare has been an uphill battle for Athena for years, and the addition of Epocrates to the platform is a step in the right direction,” said Greg Bolan, an analyst with Sterne Agee & Leach Inc, in an e-mail interview with Bloomberg.

The acquisition will help the company gain an iPhone app and expand into the lucrative electronic medical records (EMR) market.

“I have been an admirer of Epocrates since it first emerged and have watched the company grow consistently, one app download at a time, as it has cemented itself into the consciousness of America’s physicians,” said Jonathan Bush, the president and CEO of AthenaHealth in a statement. “Together, we’re excited by the opportunity to redefine the mobile toolset for care givers,” he added.

]]>0AthenaHealth scoops up Epocrates to bring a mobile toolset to doctorsHello Health gets $11.5M to banish paper records from your doctor’s officehttp://venturebeat.com/2012/11/26/hello-health/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/26/hello-health/#commentsMon, 26 Nov 2012 19:09:17 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=579735The experience of waiting on a line at your chaotic, paper-filled medical practice may be a thing of the past.
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The experience of waiting in line at your chaotic, paper-strewn doctor’s office may be a thing of the past.

Hello Health, the electronic health record provider popular with independent and local physicians, has pulled in $11.5 million in venture funding.

Around the world, doctors are shifting from paper documentation to electronic medical records. “The practice of medicine hasn’t changed much for me over my career. The business has,” said Hello Health user Dr Richard Goldberg, a New York-based family practice physician.

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When Dr. Goldberg opted to get “computerized and have everything run smoothly,” he was won over by Hello Health, which wouldn’t require his practice to pay any up-front fees. In fact, the company claimed that in the long term, it wouldn’t cost him anything at all.

Hello Health works a little differently than most ERP providers. Doctors do not pay for the service; patients do. In fact, medical practices might even make extra cash by charging patients to access Hello Health’s services (like secure instant messaging). Hello Health charges patients around $5 per month for its opt-in services; the startup makes money by taking a cut, and the rest is given back to the doctors.

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Electronic health record (EHR) software is particularly appealing for doctors as it reduces the time that is typically spent on paperwork, and makes them more available to patients. Hello Health, a New York-based subsidiary of Myca Health in Quebec, Canada, also offers billing and accounting software and a secure system for prescription requests to be processed online.

To succeed, Hello Health will compete with companies like Practice Fusion, which also offers scheduling, charting, and billing online services and which makes money through advertising rather than fees.

“Independent physicians are beginning to test alternative business models,” said IanIhnatowycz, president and chief executive officer of First Generation Capital, in a statement. “Research estimates one in three independent physicians will aim for higher yields by adopting subscription-based care models, and this trend will increase 100 percent annually for the next three years.”

Hello Health has pulled in a total of $21.5 million in VC money in the previous year. This round of funding was led by First Generation Capital.